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BRX Pro Tip: What Doesn’t Kill You…

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BRX Pro Tip: What Doesn’t Kill You…

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you this morning. Lee, you’ve heard this said before, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What’s your take on that, man? Do you believe that’s true?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] 100%. I was just reading one of my favorite authors, Ryan Holiday of The Obstacle is the Way, he was saying that there’s actually research that supports this. That in his article he was saying that elite athletes that were seriously injured initially, obviously had doubts that they’d ever be able to recover and get back out. But after they got back, each of the elite athletes wanted to help others. They gained greater perspective. They gained deeper understanding of their strengths. And then after doing the rehab work, even though they faced the fear of not getting back, they actually became better versions of themselves. So not only were they better athletically, but they felt spiritually better, mentally better. They felt that they can overcome something. They’ve seen kind of their worst case scenario play out, and they were able to overcome it so that kind of created a better version 2.0 of themselves. So I think that when you go through a hard time, to really understand and appreciate going through it as a gift. And then if you can power through it and get through it, you have a high probability of becoming a better version of yourself when you do successfully navigate that challenge.

Mariateresa Romeo with Cometa Coaching

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Mariateresa-Romeo-Cometa-CoachingMariateresa Romeo, Founder of Cometa Coaching, is an experienced executive coach and organizational behavior professional.

She specializes in individual and team performance improvement, executive presence, effective business communication, leadership development, emotional intelligence, and intercultural fluency.

After achieving a Master’s degree in Science of Communication for Business and Organizations from the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Mariateresa worked in the corporate world for more than 20 years as a management consultant. She supported several leaders at European and US-based companies, managing strategic initiatives for operational effectiveness and organizational changes.

Mariateresa is an ICF-certified Executive Coach (EEC – Milan, Italy), Emotional Intelligence Leadership Coach and Assessor (Six Seconds North America), and Neuro-Linguistic Master Practitioner (NLP University – California, USA).

Since 2015 she has coached clients in various occupations and organizational levels, including high-potential employees, entrepreneurs, and Executives. She partners with individuals and teams to enhance their communication and leadership skills, improve their performances and achieve their professional goals.

Mariateresa is originally Italian and lives in New York City. She is an art enthusiast, a cellist, and a lover of the sea.

Connect with Mariateresa on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. This is going to be a fantastic conversation. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Cometa Coaching LLC Mariateresa Romeo. How are you?

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:00:39] I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me.

Stone Payton: [00:00:43] Well, we are delighted to have you on the show, have been looking so forward to this conversation. And I’d like to jump right in because I know your work, your life is focused on on this topic and helping others with it. I’d love to get your perspective, your definition of success.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:01:04] Yeah. So success means the accomplishment of a name or poor course. Right. Is strictly related to the accomplishment of our main goals. And everyone has its own definition of success, right? For some people, it means attaining wealth or position in society. Other things about being famous or remembered over time, and the other they think they want to just be free and they feel successful because they have the freedom to do whatever they want or whenever they want. So there is not a standard definition of success, but my definition of success is that I think it’s the ability to find our uniqueness. You know, what makes you unique as a human being first and as a professional, and also find a way to share it, bring it in any individual in or in any area of your life, both personal and professional.

Stone Payton: [00:02:05] Well, I think that’s a marvelous definition, because I’ve been asked that question before, and I don’t think I was nearly as eloquent or as articulate about it, because maybe I wasn’t as clear about it for myself. Another reason I’m really looking forward to this to this conversation. Okay. So tell us a little bit about the work, mission and purpose for your coaching practice. What are you really out there trying to do for folks?

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:02:29] Yeah, so I think that the main goal of my coaching practice is helping people to find their weakness in order to find their own purpose, to be especially for for people who work in the corporate environment, in the business environment, become the leader that they want to be put that their uniqueness what what is their story? They source their value, bring everything out together and have an original approach in everything they do. So that means becoming sometimes a better communicator or get clarity of who they are and where they want to go, what they want to be in their professional life, but also building meaningful relationship with others. That is really, really important today. So those are the area where I really love to help people. And and this is the goal as a coach, at least for me.

Stone Payton: [00:03:31] It must be incredibly rewarding work.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:03:37] Yeah, it is rewarding and I can tell you that. I mean, I have accomplishment. I have accomplished many goals in my life and on some of them I’m still working on. But I can tell you that I really think that I found my uniqueness in what I do. My coaching approach is really based on the values, my own values. I believe that everyone has to be responsible of their future and their success. So as a coach, for example, I don’t tell people what to do, but I help them find their own way. You know, I help them build their own future. And at the same time, my coaching practice is based on years and years of studies in the communication field because I’m passionate about communication and human relationships. I have a master’s degree in science of Communication. I have a certified NLP master practitioner, emotional intelligence coach. So I essentially I created my own coaching approach based on different methodology. And I don’t have I don’t think that coaching is a kind of cookie cutter. You have to use the right tool. You have to be responsible of your work. So you have to approach even if you have, for example, sometimes you have two different clients that comes to you with the same type of issue we can think about, I don’t know, time management, for example.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:05:12] Honestly, I can tell you that 100%. I always approach things differently because I start know, working with the person and not working on the topic. I’m working on the client that I have in front of me, and I usually honor, you know, their uniqueness, their story, their value. So what makes me successful is that I have my own coaching approach that probably will be different from any others, and I master it because I own it. It comes from my house and my story, my background. I spent more than 20 years in the corporate environment, so this is another feature that people say that I speak the language because I know exactly what they are going through. I can easily understand the challenges that executives or people in the corporate world may have. So that makes me feel unique. And also, I think that given the client understand that they feel that it’s a process, it’s rewarding for them and they appreciate also my own uniqueness in this process.

Stone Payton: [00:06:21] Well, no doubt you’ve seen a great deal. Have you observed some patterns or habits from leaders that you’ve worked with that tend to make them more successful than others or get better results than others? I bet you have. I bet you’ve seen some habits or patterns or behaviors. A handful of those. Yeah.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:06:46] Yeah, yeah. So I think that first of all, I think that everyone experiences in some way of their professional life the difference between leadership and authority. Right? Sometimes people have the role, have the title, but we don’t see them as a leader. And the the through the things behind it is that the disruptive and authentic leader usually the most successful. And we don’t necessarily have to look at Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos is not the title of the title. The acquisition of the money is the fact that leaders, usually the successful leaders, are fearless in pure thing. They are true. They follow their passions and they generally want to improve their companies, their societies. So most of the time they don’t. I can see I can tell you one of the most common pattern is that they don’t fully align with the standard. They don’t follow predetermined path. And the but for this reason, they are also capable of inspiring and motivating others. People see them as an example to follow because they bring something different. They are unique. So again, the secret of success is find your uniqueness, what makes you unique, what is your passion and do things according to what are your values of who you are. So and I tell you, I always explain this to people when they come to me, because most of the time we have this idea that leadership should be perfect or, you know, everybody should like that.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:08:33] Like them. And this is not. This is not. Some of the attributes of the successful leader, such, for example, being set forward or do not have any use, any kind of filter where they communicate or being perfectionist and focus on the details are not that easy to manage for the people that they have around. So the interesting thing is that, I mean, they might people might not like them, of course, but this doesn’t affect their leadership. Because they understand the people around them understand that they are unique. They have they are making their own way. And another interesting attribute or pattern, how do you want to call it the today leadership is that they are vulnerable because they are authentic. We we finally legitimized the ability as a skill set of strong leaders and around the functional abilities us taking action when there is uncertainty or risk or emotional exposure. So we finally abandoned the idea of a leader as someone who never makes mistake or never show feelings and has empathy and is almost perfect. Now leaders work to create a positive working environment. They are focused on empowering people, helping them find their talents. And also, most importantly, they consider mistakes as opportunity to learn and not to blame.

Stone Payton: [00:10:15] One of the things that I’ve always admired about the coaching profession and I’ve been blessed to have experienced this to some degree on more than one occasion, is achieving a breakthrough of some kind. But I don’t know that I have any process, strategy approach to achieving it. In any advice, counsel on that front, how how can we achieve a breakthrough and or maybe just describe how you help people kind of achieve a breakthrough?

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:10:50] Yeah. So I think that the path of successful leadership starts from yourself. Start with you as an individual. So it’s not just the result of your education, the professional experience, your resume is not your company board or others who appoint you as a leader. It’s your own journey. So the way the best way, at least for me to start, is to find your purpose, explore your values, your passions, and ask yourself who you want to be and what legacy you want to build. I usually ask my client in 20 years from now who you want to be or why. You know why people should remember you. How do you want to be remembered? And once you once you answer this question, you develop a different perspective on your professional life. You find you will find yourself sometimes revisiting your goals, your choice, the way you manage your time, and, most importantly, the relationship that you build. So once you have defined who you are, then I usually help. I help you. I can help you help my clients from a communication standpoint, changing the way they communicate with themselves first. So I and when I talk about the inner dialog, I mean all the things that we say to ourselves, our self sabotage, any roadblocks that we might have that comes from the inside.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:12:32] And then we explore the way they communicate with others and build relationships. And usually what is interesting is that people around you will notice if that something is changing because the moment you change your communication approach, they you push them to do the same. So most of my clients, you know, give me this kind of feedback. The moment they start changing the communication approach with the other, they see an overall improvement in their working environment. So it’s not something that it remains with them as a as a leader, but it’s something that is spread around people around them change their approach. So usually I can tell you it’s a journey. It’s not something that you can achieve overnight. My experience is that people take usually six months. There is and there is not a clear hand. I mean, I cannot tell you when this process can end for sure, but usually is when the client realizes that they have a clear idea who they are and what they want out of their life. Sometimes this process leads them to make critical decisions or, for example, change in their career or change in their personal life, or embrace a new venture. And sometimes the journey ends when they feel more confident and in power. Then they have a plan or a mission to accomplish.

Stone Payton: [00:14:12] So I got to know I want to know about your back story. How did you end up doing this kind of work? Tell us a little bit about your background and what compelled you to get into coaching in the first place?

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:14:25] Yeah, so I have I mean, as I mentioned before, I have a master’s degree in sense of communication for business and organization. I’m Italian, so I took my degree at the University of Rome. La Sapienza and I work in the corporate environment for more than 20 years as a management consultant. So I supported several leaders, both a European or US based company, and managed strategic initiative for organizational change and operational effectiveness. And I always I was always passionate about communications. So I also took some additional training, even if I had already my good communication background. But again, I certified as an executive coach, emotional intelligence, leadership coach and assessor and NLP master practitioner. And then 2015 I started my coaching practice. So since then I coach clients in various occupation and organizational level, including high potential employee entrepreneurs or executive. So now I’m based in New York. I moved to the United States six years ago, actually, and I work both with Italian and American clients.

Stone Payton: [00:15:48] So was that at all intimidating, a little bit scary for you moving from the corporate world and going out on your own? I would think that could be a little bit scary. The unknown of, you know, now you’re running your own business.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:16:05] Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s scary. But, you know, when you feel that this is what you want and again, you take the best of any experience that you had in your life. And it’s a lot of work. It’s an internal journey. You know, build your own business is not that easy. It requires time, but also it’s required patience with yourself. Your own story and your time. But it’s something that I mean, it’s exciting at the same time. So yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:16:42] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a practitioner? Like like you, like how do you get the new business?

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:16:52] Well, I have to tell you a different way, actually, because people knows me as a coach and other knows me as a consultant. Right. But all of them knows that what I can do, how can I help? Especially, you know, the word of mouth is really important and my website is very important where you can find all the articles that I write, the research that I do in terms of communication or even cross-cultural integration. So the website is absolutely one of the main source for me and of course my LinkedIn profile as well.

Stone Payton: [00:17:35] So let’s let’s paint the picture. Let’s, let’s walk through at least the early stages of a coaching client relationship with you. Like what are, what are some of the, like, how does it start?

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:17:49] It starts from setting up a goal. So usually people come to me, but I think this is applicable to any coach because they have a chance to make a problem to solve a future state that they want to achieve in their life. So they they initial sessions are usually focused around their son. What is the goal? What is that you want? And this is tricky because the majority of my clients, they come to me and tell me telling what they don’t want. And I use easily ask them What do they want? What is that you want? And sometimes people connect with me because they don’t have a goal. They don’t have a dream in that moment. They don’t have any kind of yeah. Aspirational things that they want to achieve in their life. And coaching can be useful for that because we build a vision. I have them building a vision. So in general, the first sessions are focused on understanding what you want first, and then I help you on how you can achieve them.

Stone Payton: [00:19:05] Now I understand that in other parts of your life you are an art enthusiast and you’re a cellist.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:19:13] Did I read that? Yes. Yes.

Stone Payton: [00:19:16] So tell us about that. Is that one of the places you go to kind of recharge and find your inspiration and express your uniqueness?

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:19:28] All right. So I think that there are two places, actually. One, of course, is my home in Sicily, in Italy. That is my go to place. I think I can describe this, but you have to go there to understand the beauty of the nature, the sea, the cultural, so that we can. I consider myself really lucky because I can enjoy it. Of course, I cannot go there whenever I want because I live in New York City. But I can tell you that New York is a vibrant city, especially from a cultural, artistic standpoint. I mean, there are a lot of things that are always new venture new initiatives. I’m personally I love classical music, so I usually go pretty often to the Carnegie Hall or to the metal listening to concerts. I play myself the cello. So it’s, it’s something that I, I think. Yeah. This is also related to the to what I was saying before about your uniqueness, you know, you know, the suggesting the Russian writer used to say that beauty will save the world. And to me, this is very important, cause this somehow is my motto, because beauty is not just esthetic. Beauty means finding your own true, your own authenticity. So being capable of expressing yourself in any areas of your life is really important. So for me, for example, the classical music is and the cello or art is if one of them the nature enjoying the the sea, the beauty of the nature is another one. So those are the things that I do that to me that may make me happy again.

Stone Payton: [00:21:27] That sounds marvelous. And I think we should have a similar conversation before too long. And I think we should do it in Sicily, because I absolutely love Italy. I’ve not been to Sicily. I think that would be terrific. Let’s leave our listeners with a maybe a couple of pro tips. Maybe they’re listening to this, they’re getting inspired. They’re beginning to challenge their own thinking, and they want to start working on themselves, exploring this idea of uniqueness, revisiting their habits and their patterns. Of course, the number one pro tip is reach out to Maria Teresa. But other than that, you know, maybe something they should be reading or thinking about or maybe there’s some some preparatory work that they could be doing on their own before they even reach out to you. Just a couple of actionable tips maybe.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:22:21] Yeah. I usually suggest my clients to work on their vision. You know, they can also build the kind of vision board and use colors, pictures, whatever they want to express where they want to be. Starting somewhere. This question in three or five years or ten years from now, who you want to be, where, what type of job you want to have, who you want to have around. You start asking yourself this question and and try to put the answer down whenever however you want. You can write it down like a formal diary or you can just drawing whatever. I don’t that’s not necessary. But just express, you know, your your desire and see how that makes you feel. If you feel comfortable with this, right. If you feel that, yeah, I can do it. I have all the skills. I think that is achievable. That’s fine. If you even from an emotional standpoint, how how do you feel? You feel that you feel you deserve it, right? If you feel that there is something, you know, that sounds like off or yeah. At that point I will say maybe you want to work with a coach or maybe you want to reach out to me because I can have.

Stone Payton: [00:23:52] Well, I think that is terrific advice. Okay. If someone wants to reach out, have a conversation with you or someone on your team, or just begin to learn a little bit more about some of these topics, let’s make sure that we leave them with an easy way to do that. Whatever you feel like is appropriate. Website, email, LinkedIn. I just want to I want to make sure that it’s easy for them to connect with you.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:24:15] Yes, sure. So they can talk to me w w w dot com meta coaching dot com or sending an email to hello at meta coaching dot com.

Stone Payton: [00:24:28] Well, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show. Thank you for investing the time to visit with us. I have found this conversation inspiring, informative, and I’ll tell you what’s going on. My vision board is a trip to Sicily.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:24:43] All right. I look forward to meeting you there.

Stone Payton: [00:24:49] Know you’re doing such important work. And we sincerely appreciate you. So. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much.

Mariateresa Romeo: [00:24:56] Thank you.

Stone Payton: [00:24:58] All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Maria Teresa Romeo with comedic coaching and everyone here at the business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

BRX Pro Tip: Being Your Own Boss

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BRX Pro Tip: Being Your Own Boss

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you this morning. Lee, today’s topic, being your own boss.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:09] Yeah. I’ve had the privilege to talk to a lot of folks who have transitioned from maybe a corporate job into an entrepreneurial opportunity. And when they step into that role, I think one of the biggest, biggest learnings and one of the biggest mindset shifts that a new leader has to make is adjusting to not having a boss. And when you’re managing yourself, that means you are responsible for your actions and all of the results that occur. There is no place to hide when you are in charge.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] And it’s like that Spider-Man movie says, “With great power comes great responsibility,” the buck stops with you and you’re the one who has to take the action in order to make the big things happen. And once you truly understand that, I think most people, the light bulb goes off and then they shift into this action mode where I’ve got to take action, I’ve got to hold myself accountable, I have to be the one that’s the catalyst to move the ball. And I’m not saying you have to do all the work, but you definitely have to be the one that is dreaming bigger, that is kind of showing the path and doing the activities that take to achieve the goals that you’re setting out to achieve.

Matt Mallory with The Mallory Agency

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mallory-agency-logo-

Matt-Mallory-The-Mallory-AgencyMatt Mallory is the CEO of The Mallory Agency, a leading property and casualty insurance broker serving clients in the United States and beyond. Matt primarily partners with larger companies and organizations on their insurance needs.

He has been published in Insurance Journal, Forbes, and Restaurant and Retail Business Magazine. He has spoken to organizations such as the Claims and Litigation Management Society and is a faculty speaker for the Institute of WorkComp Professionals.

Matt holds a BFA in Communications from Valdosta State University and completed Harvard Business School’s Risk Management for Corporate Leaders program.

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Business leadership
  • Liability insurance and the importance of educating the hospitality industry about their coverage options
  • Trade name restoration

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to High Velocity Radio, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with the Mallory Agency, the man himself, the CEO, Mr. Matt Mallory. How are you doing, man?

Matt Mallory: [00:00:35] Hey, Stone, great to be here. Thanks so much for the opportunity.

Stone Payton: [00:00:39] Oh, it’s my pleasure, man. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation. Got a ton of questions. Probably not going to get to them all, but maybe a good place to start is just a little bit of an overview mission purpose. What are you and your team out there trying to do for folks?

Matt Mallory: [00:00:54] Man Of course. Great question. Yeah. Mallory Agency, we are in our fourth generation. I get to be the fourth generation of CEOs have come through this lineage. We are a 115 year old property and casualty privately held insurance broker serving clients coast to coast and overseas. And and so we’re really changing the nature of the client broker relationship. And the reason that we are different is because we make a difference and we really treat clients their entire insurance program as a living, breathing entity, which has been missing for a long time in our industry.

Stone Payton: [00:01:32] Do you guys focus on a handful of specific industries or types of companies more than others?

Matt Mallory: [00:01:40] Certainly do. I think years ago my dad, if he was still with us, he would be 69 next week. And as a boomer, you know, he was brought up in the generation of just anything and everything, right? Be a generalist, never say no to new business. And our mentality and our path is changed a little bit and I think quite for the better to being more specialist, expert and niche driven. So we have deep expertise within industries such as restaurants, real estate, construction, technology. And then if you really unpack property and casualty and coverage wise, we have been wildly successful in advising really great clients under coverages such as worker’s compensation and high value property. And and with that success, we want to repeat it right and repeat it in a grand way.

Stone Payton: [00:02:35] So let’s roll the clock back a little bit. When you decided to go into the the family business, was it a tough decision or was this something you knew really early on that that’s that was going to be your path?

Matt Mallory: [00:02:49] Well, spoiler alert. I never wanted to be here. I, I certainly did not grow up when I was a ten year old boy. And all the kids are talking about being, you know, a professional athlete. I never said, well, I can’t wait to be an insurance producer or insurance CEO. No, sir, that was not me. I came into this business kind of kicking and screaming and bull canter. I came into the business unemployed. So I realized I had a pretty good childhood growing up, and I came in not having a clue what insurance was or even could spell it. And my heart really wasn’t in it. And I had to understand and learn really quick to be humble and learn and listen and pay your dues and earn your stripes. And now, 15 years later, I cannot imagine doing anything else.

Stone Payton: [00:03:35] Well, you’re clearly enjoying it. I mean, I can hear it in your voice. What? What do you enjoy the most, man? What’s the most rewarding about the work?

Matt Mallory: [00:03:45] I love so much connecting with great business leaders, great executives that are just smart, well connected, good leaders, great financial minds. And being the guy that can be there, shoulder to shoulder with them and help their company be more profitable, protect their company. A lot of these companies that we are so fortunate to get to partner with are really on the way up. They’re growing and we call it the hockey stick phase, right? They are growing maybe sometimes at rapid pace. And to be on that ride with them and to make sure they are protected and that we are we are helping their economics and helping them move the needle in a positive way. It’s so fulfilling to be able to do that and to be a part of that. That’s just a that’s a feather in the cap. That’s a win for us.

Stone Payton: [00:04:35] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a company like yours? Like, how do you get an opportunity to to have a substantive conversation and get a shot at writing and writing the business with folks?

Matt Mallory: [00:04:52] Yeah, another great question. Thanks. We we are intentional on who we want to connect with. So I tell our team quite often the best clients you want to partner with and really be an advisor and a trusted partner. That’s what that’s the language. That’s the buzzword of our industry. Right? Everybody wants to be a trusted partner or an advisor. Hmm. Well, to do that, you’ve got to be in the client’s circle. You have to be in his or her fraternity or trusted network. So we have to find out how to get in there. We have to find out who those people that he or she, the client, trust and leans on. And once we get an opportunity to be in those circles, we want to make sure that we that we perform, that our output as a deliverable to the client is nothing short of excellence and we can get to that level really. Stone is less about selling insurance and it’s more making sure that we can advise accurately and very with great relevance what the client needs from protecting themselves on the risk. If we’re doing that, we’re doing our job successfully and it’s a great day.

Stone Payton: [00:06:01] Well, I have been on the line with you for like 6 minutes now, and I have no doubt there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that you can do all of what you just described in spades. But to pull it off, you’ve got to have a solid team. Would love to get your perspective on on recruiting, selecting, developing the team. That’s going to also live into all of those things you were just talking about.

Matt Mallory: [00:06:26] And how hard it is to find the great people. I think the challenge right now that everybody is experiencing, of course, is talent for our industry. What is so arguably unique is there’s nothing tangible. So we have to find people that are very good at communicating and articulating the value of something intangible. We can teach insurance and risk to just about anybody, but that’s not who we’re looking for. We’re looking for just like on the client side. We want people. We want clients and partners with great financial minds, good business leaders, deep business and financial acumen. We want that with our team, people that understand how our clients operate. We want our team to have great business acumen, financial literacy, self driven, very ambitious. They want to become better people personally and professionally. When we can find those, those individuals, we really want to be intentional on bringing them on our team and showing them the value of who we are and how we’re making a difference. Because it’s just so easy to hire just anyone in everybody but anybody. And everybody is not a great fit for who we want our client to be associated with.

Stone Payton: [00:07:39] And it strikes me that your your work involves a lot of education. I mean, you need and want to work with a well informed client. So you must you must invest a great deal of energy in in helping these people understand what they need to know to to get the right kinds of coverage and things that they probably are not even on their radar. Yeah.

Matt Mallory: [00:08:06] Yeah. Well said. I’ll hire you tomorrow. Great way to say it. We. We are very focused on being prepared for the unknown. Being proactive, removing any kind of barriers that a client may feel, even if it’s not actually there. We have to remember on our side, on the broker side, is if we think something is important, relevant of great value. But the client doesn’t either. We haven’t communicated that value clearly or the value is, quite frankly, doesn’t exist. So we have to understand what’s important to the client. It’s a bit of a crystal ball and a prophetic mission of wanting to get the telescope out and look down the line and think what’s coming next, what even could be. And we presume a little bit about what the client is looking for in meeting. Try and advise that if we can do that effectively and bring in value. Then again, like we discussed earlier that the insurance is kind of a secondary topic. The first topic is let’s prepare your business for greatness.

Stone Payton: [00:09:14] All right. So let’s paint the picture a little bit. As I understand it, one of the areas that you do have quite a track record in, in a great deal of specialized knowledge and expertise and is serving the the hospitality industry. And I don’t know the first thing about it, except I love to stay at nice hotels and nice restaurants. But for the case of this conversation, let’s say that my business partner and I, rather than than run a network, we’re going to we’re going to open a restaurant or a couple of restaurants. And so we we come to you. What does that process look like? Can you kind of walk us through the the early stages of that relationship? And the in my language, I come from the training consulting world. I would call it an engagement. Right. But can you kind of paint the picture for us? What happens next?

Matt Mallory: [00:10:07] What a fantastic word to use. I love it. I think I’m going to borrow that stone. I love the term engagement. We don’t use that term enough. Absolutely. We meet with someone. It really is a exploratory discussion of just wanting to learn more about them. It’s not about us yet. It’s just about them because we have to learn if we’re even a fit. And we’re very quick to tell the client if we’re not one because we don’t want to. We if we advise and we show value, the value has to be mutually seen. If we can’t show value, then we need to move on and in a cordial way, part ways. So we want to find out if we’re fit. We asking a lot of questions about the business from what exactly the profile of said restaurant is. And you’re right, we have great expertise in depth in restaurants currently with our restaurant practice, which I lead is a national practice. We’ve got clients in almost every state within the continental U.S. and we’re very proud of that. Most of those restaurants are on the non franchise side right now, but we’re very, very proud of what we’ve been able to achieve within our practice group and we ask a lot of great questions to these business leaders.

Matt Mallory: [00:11:13] Tell us about your restaurant. How does it look right now? What’s the profile? Where do you want it to go? Where do you expect it to go? Tell us about your team, how your team operates, how it functions. So we try and keep a peer to peer a little bit more of a of an intellectual and business acumen discussion with them. And then we can unpack a little bit more and go deeper on the risk side. But a lot of the questions that we ask, the answers that we receive from the clients, give us insight. As we move along this path, we tend to use the term assessment. We want to assess what’s going on with the client to really determine if we’re going to be a great fit and if we can if we can offer value to them and if we can, then it usually ends up being a great partnership.

Stone Payton: [00:11:55] So do restaurant owners typically come in and feel at least like they know what types of coverages they need and want? And if so, do you sometimes have to tell them? Well, yeah, maybe, but maybe not so much over here. And there’s this whole other thing that you really ought to think about, like. Well, I mean, I don’t even know. I guess if somebody slips and falls, that makes sense to me. But there’s probably a lot more than that that you should be covered for if you’re if you’re running a restaurant. Right.

Matt Mallory: [00:12:29] Yeah, absolutely. You know, just like every industry, unfortunately, within the property and casualty insurance industry, you’ve got some bad actors and we’ve also have some some individuals that kind of have forgotten the term professional and they’re just it’s a bit more amateur play on how they advise. So you have those moments where you see the client’s insurance program that has just not really been advised correctly and accurately and hasn’t really been proactive or operating efficiently. But to give some of my peers the credit, that credit is due, some of these programs are put together quite well. That could be put together a little bit better. But you always have the discussion with them of. This is how the industry looks. And we look at the industry from a two perspective. We look at the industry of being a restaurant industry from these are the current ebbs and flows of what we look at in restaurants, how restaurants are performing on a more global scale, global stage, and also kind of macro wise in your own market. Because remember, some of these discussions we have are maybe geographically based on coastal property versus inland. Maybe it is restaurants that are in a very high or rather very dense urban downtown city kind of area where there could be some crime issues. Maybe there is a maybe it’s the type of food they’re serving. And there could be a potential for a foodborne outbreak type scenario depending on what’s going on with a type of food from supply chain. There are so many different little avenues of what about this? And all we do is engage with the client, ask them what they’re doing about it right now to build it, advise them better later. So a lot of those different conversations that we bring in some insurance questions that may be a little bit cross-eyed feeling, but we have to make sure the client knows because of worst case. The worst thing possible is for us to know something and fail to advise or ask the client about it.

Stone Payton: [00:14:35] Okay. So let’s zoom out a little bit and talk about just this whole idea of leading a business in general. We touched on, you know, this whole idea of getting good people and identifying those folks. Let’s talk a little bit more about development and culture. What kinds of things have you learned to do? And I don’t know, maybe you’ve even made a mistake or two along the way you might be willing to share, but to to to create a culture that allows you and yours to to serve in this way and do it consistently. Have you learned a few things that, you know, if you were going to write a book, it would be, you know, here’s some dos, here’s some don’ts and just leading a business.

Matt Mallory: [00:15:19] Boy, have I ever. Four years ago, I took over the position of CEO. Quick historical context. My dad named Rick Mallory was third generation. He died unexpectedly in 2018. Our perpetuation plan was for, excuse me, five years when he turned 70 and I turned 40 and I’ll be 40 next year, he was going to hand over the role of CEO to me. So I started leading and took over a company I had no way to prepare for. Arrogantly, I thought that I was ready back then, and realistically and actually looking back, I was I had no idea. And full candor. In 2018, I could not even read my own pal. And I had to have basically a crash course in financial literacy, really with my CFO of how to do that. We changed language in the office from in our company, from the Met runs or owns or anything like that. I get the opportunity to lead people. If you’re going to leave people, you have to be a leader and you have to understand what that means and humble yourself and know what it means to be a leader, which means being able to lean into wise counsel. Most every one of my leadership team has been doing this longer than me, which is a fantastic place to be. I get to lean on great people, great financial literacy, great business acumen, and they have full knowledge and full welcoming for me to call me out when I am not being the leader that I’m expected to be. As far as how we empower people. Our culture is very, very centric on we invest in you team member. We don’t call anyone an employee. We don’t call anyone on staff.

Matt Mallory: [00:16:59] We want to find great team members. I tell everybody in their onboarding, we are intentional on how we are going to invest in you through compensation, through empowerment, through trust. We expect that that investment to be reciprocated. We invest in you. We expect you to invest back in us. What does that mean? That means you come in every day and give us your best. You want to become better in every category of the word, but we’re going to empower you to give you that opportunity through advancement and title, pay, responsibility, trust, etc. We expect you to want to become better and we expect you to call each other out on your team and empower your team and have that trust with your team and that encouragement of We’re going to become better because I’ve given everybody the path of where this company is going to go and I have full intention and whatever it is, in five or ten years when we achieve some of the results I expect us to achieve when we achieve that, not. Matt Mallory This is not this is not the Matt Mallory show. When we achieve that, I’m then turn around to our team and I’m going to say, Wow, look what we did together. That is our mission. It’s not on a wall, it’s not formally written down. But that is our path is that we’re going to find great people, empower them, invest in them. We ask they invest back into us so that when we achieve exceptional goals that maybe some people didn’t think we were even capable of, we’re going to look at each other and say, look what we did together.

Stone Payton: [00:18:32] Well, I got to say, man, your passion shines through. I can see how it would impact everyone around you. And in the same breath. This is not my first rodeo. You’re human. Sometimes you just. You got to recharge, man. Where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical place, but where do you go for for inspiration and to recharge the the batteries, whether it’s reading or a place or an activity? Where do you go?

Matt Mallory: [00:19:05] Yeah, I mind, body, spirit. Right. Got to stay healthy. You got to stay centered. I’m a big believer that readers are leaders. I try and consume positive, enriching content, and that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, I’m a man of faith. I’m a Christian. I start my morning in prayer and try and get inspiration and encouragement and and guidance and direction from from the Scripture. That’s how I started in my days. I’m a morning person. I enjoy getting up and having that time just to be centered and get prepared. Whether I think it’s going to be a great day or there’s going to be some challenging conversations I have to have, I need guidance with that, and I need to come and start my day with a very humbled heart and spirit and and figure out how to do that and be effective. My team expects that from me and I need to show them what that looks like. Outside of that, I’m a big believer. Break a sweat once a day. I love to play tennis with my kids. I love to be on a road bike. I’ve got a rower at home I bought from Hydro. What a fun thing to have. I’m a big believer, even if it’s 5 minutes. Break a sweat, get your heart pumping. And that’s a great way to be good to yourself and a little bit of self-care. So those are just a few things I believe in. I wish I was more consistent, I should be. But I think that as long as you’re focused on it and you’re attempting, that’s a good day.

Stone Payton: [00:20:31] All right, man. Before we wrap, let’s make sure that we that we leave our listeners with a few actionable items. I’ll call them pro tips. Right. The things that they ought to be thinking about, things they questions, maybe they should be asking things they ought to be looking for when engaging someone to help them with getting the right kind of of coverage. Number one pro tip is reach out and talk to Matt or somebody on his team. But but but maybe, you know, someone’s listening to this and and there’s some things that maybe they ought to jot down or go read a little bit about. Let’s leave him with a few people. I’m going to call them pro steps.

Matt Mallory: [00:21:12] I would start by looking at how proactive a firm is, how diligent they are in the industry. And I don’t mean insurance. I mean the clients industry. What’s the track record? What’s the proven, demonstrated client deliverable track record? How much experience have you had and what kind of results have you had? What’s the expertise? What kind of team do I have that will be proactive and partnering and serving with me? Client Those are some things I start with. In fact, every client we engage with, I can come with them at full conviction and confidence of. This is the kind of team we have that serves peers just like yours all over. These are the kind of results. This is the client deliverable and output that we are very, very proud of because we have worked very hard to make sure that we can be at this level. Those are some of the questions I would tell anyone that wants to engage, whether it’s my firm, especially even thinking about looking at a new broker of record, of what kind of what’s the transition and what is the expectation I should have from you? And then we just we roll it out to them.

Stone Payton: [00:22:28] Fantastic. All right. Where can our listeners connect with you? The best way for them to reach out and have a conversation with you or someone on your team, whatever you feel like is appropriate, whether it’s website, email, LinkedIn, I just want to make sure that they have an easy path to to connect.

Matt Mallory: [00:22:46] Of course, love connecting with new people. Linkedin, of course, is a great way. Also, you can email me. I’m fine with people emailing me and I can give that out publicly right now. Matt M Matt team at Mallory, Agent SI.com. Like everybody else, my phone is on me from dawn to dusk as well as looking at emails. So happy to connect with people and and maybe offer any kind of guidance, whether it’s on insurance and advising on insurance or some of my aches and pains and a few successes I’ve had from leading a company full of great people.

Stone Payton: [00:23:23] What a pleasure. Matt, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. It’s it’s marvelous to have a conversation with someone who is so dedicated to serving their market and is clearly committed to developing their people and giving them at least a path to purpose and fulfillment. This is what a marvelous way to invest a Thursday afternoon. Thank you for for hanging out with us, man.

Matt Mallory: [00:23:52] It’s been so much fun. Thank you for the invitation.

Stone Payton: [00:23:55] My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, CEO of the Mallory Agency, Matt Mallory, and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Author Michael McCathren

by

Michael-McCathren-headshotMichael McCathren, best-selling author of ‘6 Ps of Essential Innovation,’ is a strategic innovation expert who has spent more than 30 years leading efforts across operations, supply chain, finance, strategic planning, and marketing.

Currently, he oversees Enterprise Innovation in the Innovation & New Ventures group at Chick-fil-A where he and his team are responsible for helping the organization transform its ideas into business value.

Outside his work with Chick-fil-A, he is an adjunct professor of Innovation Management for the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. Michael holds a Master of Science in Innovation from Northeastern University. He’s deeply devoted to his faith and family, and enjoys seeing the world on his motorcycle or camping with his wife, Dena.

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • About Michael’s experience as an entrepreneur
  • How his journey in corporate America helped shape his book
  • Why he chose to write the book
  • How listeners can get the book

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to High Velocity Radio, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast, author of the best selling book six PS of a central innovation. Mr. Michael McCathren. Good afternoon, sir.

Michael McCathren: [00:00:35] Thanks for having me. Good to be here.

Stone Payton: [00:00:37] Oh, man. We’re so happy to have you on the show. Look forward to diving into this book and learning a little bit more about it. But before we go, there, would love to hear a little bit about your journey here. As I understand it, you have a day job with an organization some of our listeners may recognize. We’d love to hear a little bit about that and perhaps how maybe that’s influenced your decision that compelled you to commit some of these ideas to paper and put this book out?

Michael McCathren: [00:01:08] Yeah, man, I think I’ve got the best job in the world. I’m on a team called Enterprise Innovation with Chick fil A, and we are like an in-house consultancy to help project teams move through our five step innovation process as fast and efficiently as possible. And it’s just a dream job. Every day is new and we feel like we’re able to add value to project teams that ultimately customers get to experience. Sometimes it’s all internal processes that need a little bit of innovation, but ultimately it’s to serve our awesome community of operators who are making a difference in our restaurants every single day.

Stone Payton: [00:01:49] Well, it must be incredibly rewarding work, man.

Michael McCathren: [00:01:56] You know, I’ve got this. I think I’ve got this teacher Gene in me and and helping people realize their potential beyond what they thought was possible. It’s the same thing. I think I get jazzed about talking about projects just like, Hey, what if your project could be 110% towards the solution achieving results? You didn’t even think you could get faster than you thought you could get them. I get pumped. I get pumped about it. And luckily I work for an organization. Like you said, it’s a we have a decentralized model of innovation so that even the newest staff member, even entry level accounting analyst, one hopefully feel equipped, almost obligated to think innovatively about their role and about their work. That innovation here is not just something we do. It’s really how we think about what we do. And we’re so dedicated to it that one of our core values is we pursue what’s next. So that kind of gives us validity as we have these discussions with internal teams, how are you pursuing what’s next? And we can help expedite how they do that and hopefully raise the level of output.

Stone Payton: [00:03:09] So I’d love to hear a little bit about your experience in writing the book. Did some parts of it come a little easier than others?

Michael McCathren: [00:03:18] I mean, that’s a great question. Stone You know, in the early stages, it’s just about collecting things I thought were meaningful to me. But as time went on and I began to sort of share them here at Chick-Fil-A, and then as I gathered more information and experience and and feedback on these ideas with the students I teach at the College of Business in their professional MBA program, I started realizing, you know, these challenges that we’re all facing as corporate innovators are pretty much the same no matter what size company you’re from or what type of industry you’re from. And, you know, I got my master’s in innovation from Northeastern during COVID, and it just sort of that that helped me organize my thoughts into these six PS And then yeah, I mean, I’m super proud of it. It was a it was a mess to begin with, let me tell you. It was a mess. It didn’t make any sense at all. It just felt like just rambling on some business paper. But once it once I finally got it down to six PS, I felt like, Hey, I think these are digestible. And it just so happened they fell into place like the first three PS have to do with culture. So we’re talking about perception is one, people is another and philosophy is the third one and then the next three. Ps having to do with process and place and permanence are more like capabilities. So it’s a guidebook, hopefully, that readers will find helpful as a field guide that walks them through. Hey, what do I have to have in order for my innovation capabilities to stick and be permanent? And that was a big learning for me as I realized that the. In any kind of organization, no matter if it’s profit, non profit, the application of innovation capabilities is actually the easier part. It’s the culture is your culture and actually an innovation culture that’s even ready to accept innovation capabilities.

Stone Payton: [00:05:21] I love that you frame it as a as a field guide because that gives me the sense that it’s it’s something much more that I can put into action. And maybe I don’t even have to wait to read the whole thing before I start putting some things into action. Can you say more about that and maybe describe the structure of the book a little bit?

Michael McCathren: [00:05:40] You bet, yeah. Right off the bat, in chapter one, we talk about the first P perspective. There’s a free online innovation perception assessment that you can take at essential innovation, and it’s across four pillars. So this gives you an idea of what you, as well as the most important people within your organization, believe about, hey, when it comes to innovation, what what’s true about my senior leadership? What’s true about me as a staff member? Do I feel equipped? Do I have time? Is there a safe space and so on? Where does how would I rank our organizational culture in terms of how strong or weak it is in terms of innovation, culture, and then is it permanent? Is this sustainable? Do we have training and education and engagements and events that continue to help the organization become stronger and stronger over time in its practice of innovation? That’s right off the bat. That’s just like chapter one. You could do this and it points to the gaps that you have in any particular pillar. So then the rest of the book helps you address any of these gaps that you may have. So you’re right. You can go right into chapter two and talk about people and talk about, hey, what are some of the behaviors that someone who leads with an innovation mindset, what does that even look like? So we talk about humility and trust and how those two key fundamental parts of a good leadership practice actually is a little bit redefined through leading with an innovation mindset. For example, everybody knows what humility is, right? We’ve we’ve read the books or the podcast. We’ve read the papers.

Michael McCathren: [00:07:28] We’ve been taught what humility is and how fundamental it is to good leadership. However, through the lens of leading with an innovation mindset, an enhancement to traditional definitions is that we allow others to influence our thinking. So it’s a it’s a little counterintuitive because none of us are where we are in our professional lives because we completely allowed others to influence our thinking. We had to be the idea guy or the idea girl. We had to come up with the plans ourselves because we wanted our name at the bottom of the page. So we get credit so that we’d get promoted and up the ladder we go, Well, leaders of the future, though, realize that that model is a little bit broken because competition is moving to swiftly. Technology is changing too rapidly, consumer preferences and behaviors are changing too rapidly. Business is becoming too complex for me to think I am qualified to even have the right answer every single time. So they have to open it up and lead to an innovation mindset and say, You know what, I’m going to allow others to influence my thinking. And we talk about, well, if that’s the case, then who the others are becomes a really critical choice. And so we walk them through that same thing with trust. There are four trust behaviors that we talk about in the book, and you can begin those trust behaviors tomorrow. So yeah, I hope I hope it is a field guide that you can begin implementing the things that are discussed in the book in every single chapter you can. You could do it tomorrow.

Stone Payton: [00:09:04] Well, okay. So the full title is six P’s of a Central Innovation Create the culture and capabilities of a resilient innovation organization. I’ve got to say, I’ve heard both of those words a lot in my career and in the interviews that I’ve conducted, resilient and innovation. I don’t know that I’ve seen them paired together. Can you can you speak to that a little bit, that idea of resilient innovation?

Michael McCathren: [00:09:27] Yeah. Okay. So this hit me sideways when I read the Deloitte 2021 Global Resilience Report. They talk to over 2000 C CXOs from 21 different countries. And they were discussing, hey, how well prepared did you feel you were going into 2020? And then after that, the disruption of the pandemic? They went back and said that you’ve got a few months under your belt through this disruption. How well now do you feel like you as a leader and. As an organization, we’re prepared. And there were some themes that jumped out at me that they pointed out as like the attributes of a resilient organization. And one of them was prepared. Another one was adaptable and another one was collaborative and another one was trustworthy. And I started chewing on this a little bit. I’m like, You know what? To me, it’s almost like an equation that a resilient organization is one that is prepared. And prepared then is the equation of adaptable plus collaborative plus trustworthy. And then it dawned on me, Oh my gosh, this is the recipe for innovation. It’s a recipe for creating an innovation organization. So that’s kind of where that comes together.

Stone Payton: [00:10:51] Yeah. I won’t ask you to do an audio book here, but but I would love for you to you mentioned a couple of the PS two or three of the PS. Walk us through the other three or four, if you would, and just, you know, maybe give us a couple of sentences on it so that we. So we’ve got the full picture of this thing.

Michael McCathren: [00:11:08] Yeah, sure. So yeah, we covered perception. People recovered a little bit to but it gets down to the leaders of the organization have to model innovative thinking behaviors. So that’s what that’s about. And by the way, I said the leaders of the organization, I personally don’t think that there’s any such thing as an innovative organization. To me, what I’ve experienced is that it is it’s how strong the culture of innovation is at the department in sub department levels that collectively determine whether an organization is truly an innovation organization. And let me just park it here for just a second and let me point out that you’ve heard me use the word innovation organization and not innovative organization. And here’s why. It’s a it’s an important distinction, I think, because innovative organizations can point to either a product typically or a season where they were they did some innovative things or a leader came on board and he or she was an innovative leader and did some innovative things. But oftentimes in those organizations, when that season is over or when that innovative leader leaves, then so does innovation. So innovative is more like what you do. Innovation can be who you are as an organization, and it could be at the sub department level. So that’s why it’s important that leaders, even at the sub department particularly know the leadership behaviors and can model these innovation leadership behaviors.

Michael McCathren: [00:12:45] The third piece is about philosophy. Where does the actual existence of innovation sit within the organization? So we’re talking about structure. Does it have a seat at the planning table? How involved is it in strategic decisions? We talk about common language. We talk about how are we going to stand a capability up through training and we start identifying how we’re going to frame this up in terms of how do we want the culture of innovation, how do we want it to be discussed, and how deep is it in our core values? For example, like I said about it, is part of our core values under we pursue what’s next. So for any organization, that is the chapter under philosophy where they’ve got to wrestle this stuff down. The next one is process and your Google innovation process and you’re going to get thousands of results. And even with the students in the professional MBA program, they come from many times global companies and all of their companies have very different innovation processes or interestingly enough, no process whatsoever. So process is a dime a dozen. However, what I try to do is emphasize the audience as the as the nucleus and divide it into four parts. And I also layer on thinking types for each of the four parts. And then that mental model of how do we need to approach each one before we go on to the next one? So it’s a little I hope people find it a little bit more robust than just the typical the process.

Michael McCathren: [00:14:21] And then we talk about place. And I got to tell you, nothing says more about an organization’s commitment to innovation than the lack of a space. So there’s been studies done where we are trapped by the cues of just getting our work done, that until we are able to eliminate those cues, the creative problem solving self that resides in all of us can’t speak and can’t thrive. So there’s got to be a place, even if it’s just a part of a meeting room from time to time that eliminates these cues of our daily grind, opens up our thinking, frees our vision. And allows that creative problem solving self to really, really flourish. So that’s a place in the final one is permanent. So that’s where we talk about, hey, how do we continue to equip and inspire our organization from the folks who have been here a long time to the folks who just joined us yesterday. We in a decentralized model of innovation, you want to create that army of everyday innovators that transcends any particular leader. So when they leave, that is still a rich garden that produces fruit in terms of innovation for years to come.

Stone Payton: [00:15:37] All right. Let’s talk about me for a minute. You know, it is my show. No, I almost reached no, I almost reached out to you the other day because I knew we were going to have this this interview. I run an organization, me and my business partner run the business radio network. And we have this kind of federation of people who run these studios. And part of we’re blessed in a lot of ways, one of which is someone in another market like Phenix will trip over something or have an idea and bring it to the and bring it to the collective. And my question is, how do you create the culture, create the environment where when people share ideas and then for whatever reason, you’re just you’re not going to implement the idea. It was a great idea. You’re delighted to have them submit it, but so that they don’t feel like they’re shut down and they won’t come back with another idea next time. Because that really concerns me whenever we choose not to implement an idea from someone because I want them to keep contributing.

Michael McCathren: [00:16:36] Yeah. Oh, my gosh. This is so good. All right. So one of the leadership behaviors are trust behaviors specifically is that when someone on my team or in your case like a partner, when someone on my team presents an idea that they can trust, that I will always respond to their idea with questions in that statements. So I give examples about 20 questions or more in the book that leaders can ask their team members who come up with questions and these with ideas, these ideas whether they’re like so off track, they’re so off strategy, they’re way off base. That will always be, but they will always be met with questions. Now, this does a couple of things. If I’m that team member and I submit an idea or I share an idea with my boss and that boss asks me a bunch of questions about it, the first thing it does is it lowers my vulnerability because he or she has actually shown genuine interest in my idea. They don’t have to say whether they like it or not. That’s not the point. They’re just interested in. Hey, how did you come up with this idea? What problem does it solve? For whom does this problem exist? Have you talked to other people about this problem? And on and on and on.

Michael McCathren: [00:17:50] So I have now created an environment as a leader, a safe space, so that people can begin to think more freely and more broadly about ideas and problem solving than they did before. And the level of execution or the quality of the solutions will be better over time. The second thing that it does is that if my team knows that I’m going to ask all these questions, then their ideas are going to be better fleshed out before they get to me. In fact, some of those ideas may not get to me when they normally would have because they’re going to self evaluate and self analyze their ideas and either decide to refine them and present them or decide, hey, you know what? This kind of became an idea in search of a problem. So I’m not going I don’t think it’s adding any value. So I’m going to move on to the next one.

Stone Payton: [00:18:42] I am so glad that I asked the question. If you’re out there listening and you want to get some free counsel, really good free counsel consistently, get yourself a radio show interview and ask them about all your all your stuff. No, that was very helpful. Very helpful. So, yeah, while we’re on this path, maybe we could get a little insight into your perspective on how to best utilize the book to get the most out of it, both as an individual. And of course, now I’m envisioning it as as a leader, as a as a team, because I suspect there are some marvelous ways to to get the most out of this individually, but also in a in a team environment. So any any advice you have on that front would be great.

Michael McCathren: [00:19:27] Yeah. So I’m actually using this book as my textbook for the professional MBA course I teach. And what’s really been thankfully a good outcome so far anyway is that at the end of each chapter, I have a section called Your Move, and it’s in three parts. One is it’s a reflection, then a reaction, and then action. So for example, at the end of the people chapter, a reflection question is what would my team say? My question to statement ratio is a reaction. Question is what specific behaviors of trust and humility do I need to improve? And then the action is two parts. One is self to become a better leader with an innovation mindset. What will I do differently first, starting when? And then for the organization or the department or team who will own the responsibility for transforming our team or organization into an innovation organization and what makes this person the best choice? The end of every chapter has that space where you can pause and reflect and figure out, Okay, what exactly am I going to do next with what I just got?

Stone Payton: [00:20:41] All right. Where can our listeners get their hands on this book?

Michael McCathren: [00:20:45] Amazon.com, brother. So six P’s, it is the number six P. S, altogether six P’s of Essential Innovation. On Amazon.com, you can have it on Kindle or order it as a paperback.

Stone Payton: [00:21:00] What an absolute delight to have you join us on the show this afternoon. I’m taking it back to my ranch and applying it. I can tell you that.

Michael McCathren: [00:21:08] Come on. It sounds great. Stunning. Yeah, I would love it. Stay in touch for sure.

Stone Payton: [00:21:12] You got it, man. Again, thank you so much for investing. The time and the energy. The work you’re doing is it’s important, man. And we sincerely appreciate you.

Michael McCathren: [00:21:21] Well, likewise. I appreciate the opportunity.

Stone Payton: [00:21:24] All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Michael McCarron, author of the best selling book, Six P’s of Essential Innovation. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Business Broker Ahmed Refai

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Ahmed-Refai-headshot-bwAhmed Refai is a high-performing professional with deep expertise in scaling customer relationships generating revenue through customer-focused business development efforts.

He is a trusted advisor to clients with global expertise creating new business opportunities, producing significant expansion for existing customers, new clients, and business partners.

Ahmed engages with key decision-makers, sets strategic business development, and financial plans to penetrate target markets.

Connect with Ahmed on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Buy a Business Near Me. Brought to you by the Business Radio X Ambassador Program, helping business brokers sell more local businesses. Now here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:32] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Buy a Business Near Me. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for such a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with BTI Group Ahmed Refai. How are you, man?

Ahmed Refai: [00:00:50] I’m very good. Very good. And thank you so much for having me.

Stone Payton: [00:00:53] Oh, man, we are so pleased to have you on the program. I got a ton of questions we won’t get to to all of them, but the place I’d like to start, though. Mission, purpose. How would you articulate what you’re really out there trying to do to serve people?

Ahmed Refai: [00:01:10] Yeah, sure. So first of all, I want to understand the buyers, the seller’s needs, what they’re looking for. Exactly. And each deal is different and unique. You have to understand the characteristics and the dreams and the objectives in the future and how to serve them in the future. And as I mentioned earlier, each deal is different and unique. And if you want to know what they’re looking for, some businesses have been around for ten years and some for 20 years and some for 30 years, and each one has different goal and objectives.

Stone Payton: [00:01:42] So how did you get into business brokerage when everyone else was playing cowboys and Indians? Were you playing business broker? I bet the path was different than that.

Ahmed Refai: [00:01:52] Yeah, it’s interesting. So in my previous position, I used to work for outsourced financial services firm. They provide a financial services and CFO consulting services, day to day transaction and accounting valuation services and taxes as well. And I was working closely with early stage venture backed companies and also I was partnering with VCs and Angels and lawyers. And in 2020, as you know, the pandemic hit and I got laid off among other employees. And I decided to focus in this space because I love numbers, I love finance, and I’m good at numbers. So I decided to focus on financial services industry and BTI Group reached out to me and I had a great conversation with my manager because he was so transparent and honest from the beginning. He talked to me about the pros and cons, about the industry and about the position, and he mentioned many negatives and cons in this space a lot. That’s why I like that he was so transparent. For instance, he told me that the survival rate in this industry is almost 5% because you won’t get paid until you sell a business. And here in the Bay Area, the cost of living is insane. So I have to be financially prepared for at least two years, sometimes more.

Ahmed Refai: [00:03:20] Also, it’s not easy to generate leads. You can generate leads, but it’s not easy to generate good leads. And the national average sale is between 8 to 12 months, sometimes more. So besides all the cons and the negatives, I saw this from different angles and I saw potential opportunity in this space because there is a shortage in online business brokers in the Bay Area. I don’t know what’s happening elsewhere nationwide, but in the Bay Area there is a huge shortage of business brokers. Also, I have financial and consulting background and I saw I can thrive in this space and more importantly, the impact that I provide to business owners and sellers. For instance, me and my manager, we were working on a deal last year and the lady had been operating the business for almost four decades and last year we helped her to sell the business. And she’s not from us. She came from Paris and after selling the business she used the proceeds of the sale and she went back to her home country, Paris, and she bought a new home and she started a new life and new chapter. So how cool is that? And these are the reasons why I decided to get into the business brokerage.

Stone Payton: [00:04:37] So you’ve been at it long enough now. I suspect you’ve probably built your own personal process framework methodology. Is that accurate? And if so, can you tell us a little bit about it?

Ahmed Refai: [00:04:50] Absolutely. And I’m glad you brought this up. So I’m going to answer this question this way. When I first started at BPI group, I didn’t sell a business before and I didn’t know the process. So for the first four or five months, I wanted to understand the ins and outs of the business, how the process looked like, and what type of questions to ask for the buyers and sellers. And I was shadowing my manager and other business brokers and people who have been in the market for 20 and 30 and 40 plus years to learn from them. And after four or five months, I created my own framework and has been working very well for me and I want to break down my framework into four stages. So stage number one is I have to have a consistent deal flow. This is very important and I generate leads through three sources. The first, I generate leads from the marketing department at the firm and I rely on them heavily, I would say 50%. I generate my leads from the marketing department and the other 50% are generate leads from LinkedIn. And through my network I know a bunch of lawyers and accountants and I get referrals from them all the time and once I get the lead, I have to qualify them and answer the. The right questions and then get the financials. It’s no easy task to get the financials from the client.

Ahmed Refai: [00:06:18] Sometimes it takes more than a year to get the financials. You heard me right. It’s a long time. It’s a long time. And I had four clients I got. I reached out to them last February in 2021, last year and in March. And I just got the financials this year. So it’s not easy to and you can imagine you have a business and someone asks you for the financials. It’s not easy. We never send in the financials right away. Right. And once I get the financials, I get I get to the stage number two, which is value the business. And I agree on the purchase price value of the business. It’s mix of art and science and it’s teachable. But to agree on the purchase price, it’s not easy. I became comfortable on agreeing on the purchase price with the seller after having ten or 15 conversations. I guess because most of the times we have valuation in the mind. For instance, there is a client he thought that his business valued at $10 million and after doing the valuation, the business is valued around 1.52 million maximum. So we are far away from 10 million. And I have to justify this number and I have to back up my numbers. So if we are far away that much, then respectfully I have to walk away from the after educating him. But if it’s if he thinks that it’s 10 million and my valuation is seven or eight, then it’s fine.

Ahmed Refai: [00:07:48] We can go from there. And this stage is very important and I had to focus on this one a lot because if you can convince the seller to agree on the purchase price, you will never have a listing. And once you agree on the purchase price, get to the third stage. And this stage is very critical. I start preparing the marketing materials such as the teaser. It’s one page or two, two pages, just the general information of the business to attract and read investors and just vague information. And if investors are interested, then we send them the NDA to send them. The book we call a CVR stands for a confidential business review and then lists all the potential buyers for this stage. Stage number three, I like to check the box for four points. First point is, I want to make sure that the seller is ethical and is truthful because truthfulness is contagious. If the seller lied to me from the beginning, then guess what? It would be lying down the road, especially when we get to the due diligence process. So I want to make sure that how ethical is the owner and he’s truthful or not. The second checkbox that I want to know is most businesses, they need to do some adjustments to enhance the business.

Ahmed Refai: [00:09:13] Some of them are minor and some of them are major adjustments. If it’s minor, it’s fine. But if it’s major, I have to have a hard conversation with the client and be honest with them. If you are going to sell the business at this situation, then you would never sell it at a premium. However, if you can do this adjustments, which is going to take one or two or maybe three years, you will sell the business at premium. And I have to be honest with them upfront from the beginning to set the right expectations. And the third checkbox is I want to see how motivation is the seller because because if he’s not motivated, then how on earth is going to work with me and with the buyer when we get to the due diligence process? So it’s very important to see how cooperative with me and how motivated he is. And the last piece is I want to make sure that I have all the documents at hand and be ready to expedite the process when we get to the process. And I want to extend to this point one of the things that I learned the hard way, I had a client and we prepared everything. We prepared all the paperwork and the documents, and we were ready to go out. And one, when I brought the buyer, he was sophisticated investor. He started to ask the owner a lot of questions and guess what? The owner couldn’t answer all these questions.

Ahmed Refai: [00:10:36] And if I were the investor, I would walk away and he walked away. And what I learned here is in the future, I have to make sure that the seller and the owner is equipped and prepared for this type of conversations because it’s under my responsibility. They haven’t sold the business before and it’s an emotional event and they don’t know what to say and what not to say. So I learned the lesson and I wrote down that in the future, when I encounter this, I have to make sure that the seller is equipped for this type of conversation. And finally, the stage number four is the business goes live and start reaching out to buyers. And when we agree with a potential buyer, we will start working on the process. And this makes or breaks the deal. But if you are prepared for the stage and the seller is prepared as well, you will go through it and you will sell the business and the seller will enjoy the benefits and we get the rewards. This framework works very well for me. This is the foundation I have to master each stage and I’m evolving this framework down the road because if I am not evolving this framework, I will never grow and I will never get to the next level.

Stone Payton: [00:11:53] Sounds to me like you have a very thorough process and one that provides the right kind of education and preparation for for buyer and seller alike. It sounds to me like you’ve invested a lot of energy in this process, this framework of yours.

Ahmed Refai: [00:12:11] Yeah, I read a lot of articles and saw many videos. I shadowed the many, many, many people. I talked to a lot of people. And this is how I become a professional, because I love the industry. I love the impact that I provide to business owners. And this is how you grow and this is how you get it done. Each thing you have to have the framework, but to have a framework that is workable, you have to test it many times and reflect and start again until you get it done. And this one has been working for me for a while. So yeah, it’s working now.

Stone Payton: [00:12:49] Have you found that some types of businesses are? I don’t. I hate to use the word easy, but are a little more marketable or the process comes together faster. I will go ahead and say it. Are they are some businesses easier to sell than others?

Ahmed Refai: [00:13:05] Yeah, of course. Somebody. So my question, my manager told me each business is different and each business is unique and you have to put your ego aside. If you sold five or ten or 20 or 30 businesses don’t think that you can sell any businesses in the future because again, each deal is different. Some businesses to answer the question, some businesses are easy, of course, and some of them are not. But from my experience, you need to do some work and adjustments. Remember when I told you I want to check the box to see that the business needs some adjustments? It could be minor or major. Most of the business owners, unfortunately, they are not prepared to get to this stage. Most of them, they break even. They have a good lifestyle. They send their children to very good schools. They have cars, they bought properties and their businesses are not sellable and they don’t have a management team. They are very good operators. They don’t know how to manage and create a management team. We don’t have sales team. They do everything and when you have this type of businesses, you can’t sell it at a premium.

Ahmed Refai: [00:14:13] You will never sell it at a premium and they are not prepared to have free cash flow, they are not prepared to have a great margins. And they always think about the revenue as a whole as as the whole revenue streams combined. And when I ask them to break down the revenue streams, I would say 95% of them, they don’t have the numbers, they don’t break even each revenue stream. And it takes a lot of work because I have to know each revenue stream, I have to know the margins, the gross profit and everything to see what works and what and what doesn’t work. Because I have to disclose it when I talk to investors and buyers because we talk financials a lot and I want to know what works and what doesn’t. And also, no one is perfect and each business has its own weaknesses and negatives. And I have to suss it out when I talk to investors, because investors wants to know everything about the business. And if you are honest and transparent upfront, it will expedite the process.

Stone Payton: [00:15:16] Well, what I like in what what I’m hearing or I think I’m hearing is if I’m preparing to sell my business, I come to you. We sort of work our way through this framework and we get to that part where we’ve got a valuation or we’re beginning to work on valuation, and then you identify some adjustments that could really move the needle on that valuation. It’s not game over if if I’ve got some of these challenges in my business right now as we sit here today, and if I’ll have an open mind and listen to some of your counsel, I can go back and clean up some things, do some things differently and then come back. I don’t know what the time frame is 18 months, two years, whatever it is. Then we’ve got something that’s very sellable. We don’t have to give up just because we hit that point the first time.

Ahmed Refai: [00:16:06] Right. Exactly. And I want to give you a. And a story that happened to me last year. There was a client came to me and he told me, I want to sell the business. He has been operating the business for almost three decades, 28 years. And he has a good lifestyle. And as I mentioned earlier, he sent his children to good schools, UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara, and he has four or five cars and he has a very good lifestyle. And when I started to the various business and these financials, I was surprised. I was surprised. First of all, his financials were not clean. His margins were very bad. And I had a hard conversation with them. I told him, listen, to sell the business, you have to clean your financials and you have to do major adjustments, not minor adjustments. And if you are going to do these major adjustments, it’s going to take for you 2 to 3 years. So I want to know, are you in a hurry? You want to sell the business, you have something that is emergency. You need liquidity. You want to sell the business right now, or it’s fine to wait two or three years to make the business sellable and attractive to investors. And the answer was great. He told me, No, I can stay two, three years. It’s not good for me, of course, because I want to sell the business. I want to sell the business. But you have to be honest upfront because it’s my reputation and the company’s reputation and we we work for the interest. Remember when I told you one of the most important things that I like about this job is to have an impact. And I remember when I was me and my manager sold the company that I told you about earlier. She was super happy and I’m in touch with her from time to time, use that as a reference and she has a great life and we were the reason to have this life. And she bought a house and she started a new chapter. So it’s amazing.

Stone Payton: [00:18:06] Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about deal structure because it doesn’t necessarily have to be where you’re just writing a check and you’re done. There’s some creative ways that you can structure the buying of a business. Right.

Ahmed Refai: [00:18:23] Exactly. So I’m going to answer this question this way. I work for B.T. Group. It’s a subdivision of business team and business team. They they like to work as a team. When we structured and when we get to the process, we have to work as a team because each deal is different and each deal is unique. And the president wants to make sure that we want we will avoid all the pitfalls down the road. That’s why we have to work as a team, and that’s why the name of the company is business team. Each deal is different and we have to structure differently. And first of all, we have to understand the client’s needs. It’s going to be purchased sale or stock sale and what works for him and based on the tax consequences, because most of the buyers they like to have, they have the love to do asset sale. And because of liabilities and some of the business owners, they don’t understand what does SSA mean and what does stock sale mean. And I have to educate them. But in general rule and this is how it works for most of the deals, most of the times the buyer pays. I’m talking about financial buyers. Most of the financial buyers, they pay between 10 to 20% down payment, preferably more than 10%. The more the better. And the rest will be financed by the bank and 10% would be financed by the seller. The bank wants to make sure that the seller has skin in the game. They want to make sure that he will have a smooth transaction to the new buyer and smooth transaction to the employees is very important. And also want to make sure that the new buyer is he can afford to complete an acquisition. He can afford to pay ten or 15 or 20% for the down payment or not. And then we go from there. We have to be creative, but it’s not it’s not complicated. Again, we work as a team, my manager and other managing directors and VP and the president and we see what’s the best interest for for the seller.

Stone Payton: [00:20:35] Okay. Before we wrap, let’s leave our listeners with with a with a few pro tips buyers and sellers alike, just some actionable tips, some things they can begin doing, maybe reading, maybe be thinking about. I mean, the number one tip is reach out to refi. But, you know, short of that, what are some some pro tips that we could leave them with?

Ahmed Refai: [00:20:56] So I have tips for buyers and sellers that start with the buyers. First, the buyers should understand what does business brokers look for? Business brokers look for two important questions. For me. For me, for instance, I want to know that this buyer is capable to run the business or not. He’s qualified to run the business or not. He will be qualified by the bank or not. Second, I want to make sure that he can complete the acquisition. He can afford to complete the acquisition. And finally, for the buyer, as they have to have their own characteristics and their own thesis. Last last week, I had a conversation with sophisticated buyer. He told me, you know, refi. I’m looking for businesses that they have between 1 million to 3 million pre profit and should be in the Bay Area concise to the point and he knows what he’s doing. Other buyers, they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re all over the place. They’re looking for any business and it doesn’t work that way. They have to be concise and understand the characteristics regarding the sellers. They have to clean the financials. They have to have all the documents and the paperwork ready at hand to expedite the process when we get to the deed process.

Ahmed Refai: [00:22:10] Also, I always start with the sellers. They have to ask themselves what they’re going to do after selling the business. If they can’t answer this question, then I tell them, Please don’t proceed and don’t sell the business. This is very important. Also, they have to understand the working capital and the tax consequences for the sellers post acquisition. And this is the contentious that happens between the sellers and the buyers and the continuing involvement post-sale. They have to be prepared and willing to stay at least six months, maybe more. It depends on the business because each business that is to stay for at least six months to make sure that they have a smooth transaction and to increase the value of the company. The seller should have a management team to run the business and his or her absence and have a sales team and more importantly, to have a subscription model. This is very important to estimate the demand and predict the free cash flow, because if you can predict the free cash flow, then there is no business. Right?

Stone Payton: [00:23:16] Right.

Ahmed Refai: [00:23:18] If the seller can can have a strong and robust management team and can have sales team and can have a robust subscription model, the seller can buy the business sell the business at premium price.

Stone Payton: [00:23:32] Well, I’m glad I asked what a marvelous set of tips. Okay. So if someone would like to reach out, have a conversation with you or someone on your team, or just learn more about any of these topics, let’s make sure that they can get connected with you, whatever you feel like is appropriate. Email, phone, website, LinkedIn. I just want to make sure they can connect with you.

Ahmed Refai: [00:23:54] Sure. Like LinkedIn. And through my email. My email is a wi fi a r e f i at business dash. Time.com is a way I can reach out.

Stone Payton: [00:24:07] Well, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon refi. Thank you for making the time to do it.

Ahmed Refai: [00:24:15] Thank you so much, Stone. I really enjoyed this conversation and thank you so much for having me.

Stone Payton: [00:24:20] All right. This is Stone Payton for our guest today. Refi with BTI group and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you next time on buy a business near me.

 

BRX Pro Tip: Create a Get To Do List

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BRX-Banner

BRX Pro Tip: Create a Get To Do List

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I know in my day-to-day work, I make a lot of lists, a list of priorities, to-do list, that kind of thing. But your counsel is to craft a get-to-do list.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Yeah. I think if you reframe a half-to-do list into a get-to-do list, it’s kind of a change in mindset. Instead of trying to force your will into the universe, how about try just accepting what is happening to you with some humility and appreciation? And instead of thinking, I have to wait – like here’s something. Instead of thinking I have to wait in this long line, you can reframe it into, I get to work on my patience and practice mindfulness as I wait in this long line.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:52] Like, it isn’t – some of these things that you’re kind of feeling victim to and feeling like this is not fair or it’s sabotaging you, if you reframe this into looking at what is the gift that this opportunity is giving you, I think you’re going to find a lot more happiness and a lot less stress.

WBENC 2022: Zoe Oli with Beautiful Curly Me

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Zoe-Oli-GWBC-WBENC-National-ConferenceZoe Oli, Beautiful Curly Me

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for GWBC Radio’s Open for Business. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from the 2022 WBENC National Conference inside the GWBC booth, booth 1812, so come by and see us. So excited. Been waiting all day for this interview. Zoe Olie.

Zoe Olie: [00:00:18] Olie.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Olie. Close, close. 50/50 chance. Sorry, I screwed it up. Zoe Olie with Beautiful Curly Me. Welcome, Zoe.

Zoe Olie: [00:00:42] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] So excited. For our listeners who can’t see, Zoe is a little younger than some of the folks we have had here and I haven’t asked anybody their age, but I’m going to ask you yours. How old are you, Zoe?

Zoe Olie: [00:00:54] I am 10.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] Ten years old, and you are a certified women-owned business.

Zoe Olie: [00:01:00] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] Congratulations on that.

Zoe Olie: [00:01:02] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:03] What made you get certified?

Zoe Olie: [00:01:07] Because I own—I am the CEO and co-founder with my mom, Ivana, of Beautiful Curly Me, which is my company. And Beautiful Curly Me is a brand on a mission to instill and inspire confidence in young Black and Brown girls through toys and empowering content. And we are also a social impact brand, so for every dollar that’s bought on our website, beautifulcurlyme.com, we give one to a young girl in need.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:36] Very nice. So, now, what was—how did the idea come about?

Zoe Olie: [00:01:40] So, when I was six years old, I did not-

Lee Kantor: [00:01:42] Way back then.

Zoe Olie: [00:01:43] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] That was four years ago. That was forever.

Zoe Olie: [00:01:47] So, when I was six, I did not like my hair and I wished it was straight, like my classmates. And so, my mom did everything she could to help me, including getting me a Black doll. And I really like that doll, but she did not have hair that looked like mine, and I still did not feel good about myself because of that. And so, when my mom went back to the stores and came up short, I decided I wanted to start my own business and do something about this.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:12] And the business is dolls with curly hair?

Zoe Olie: [00:02:15] Yes. So, we have a line of dolls, Layla and Mika, with curls and braids, and we also sell the books that I have written, as well as puzzles and haircare accessories.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:26] So, having an idea, and then having a doll are two different things. So, what did that first doll—how did you kind of create that first doll?

Zoe Olie: [00:02:36] Well, we did a lot of research, because my mom did not know anything about the doll or toy manufacturing.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:41] What about you? You’re the doll person. Your mom probably doesn’t have a lot of dolls, I would guess.

Zoe Olie: [00:02:47] No, not really.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:48] I bet you have more.

Zoe Olie: [00:02:50] Yes, I did.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:50] I want to know about your dolls. How did you say I want the doll to look like this, I want it to have this kind of dress, I want it to have this kind of a face? How did that happen?

Zoe Olie: [00:03:01] Well, I knew that I wanted a doll with curly and relatable hair, so we first decided the texture of hair we wanted. We decided the skin color as well. And then, we decided about the outfit, which we were all about affirmations and being proud of who you are. So, we chose curly and confident as like our kind of statement.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:25] That’s your catchphrase?

Zoe Olie: [00:03:25] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:26] Curly and confident.

Zoe Olie: [00:03:27] And so, that’s actually on the doll’s t-shirt.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:29] Do you have t-shirts that I can buy that say curly and confident? My hair gets very curly. It doesn’t look curly now, but it will get curly.

Zoe Olie: [00:03:38] We actually do have women’s t-shirts on sale on our website, beautifulcurlyme.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:44] Alright. Beautifulcurlyme.com. We’ll get a shirt hopefully in my size at some point. So, when you’re doing this kind of work, and you think about, oh, I’d like to have a doll, and you design the doll, did you look at—how did you tell the person to make it? Like did your mom make the first doll or did you make it? Did you sew a doll like or do you go and get—where do you go to get dolls?

Zoe Olie: [00:04:10] Well, we looked online for a supplier in China who currently helps us make and manufacture the dolls to us. And then, we also found someone to get our boxes, as well as all the other things that the doll comes with.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:26] But isn’t that the fun part, saying, picking, I like that, I don’t like this? Did you have fun doing that?

Zoe Olie: [00:04:31] Yes, I actually did have fun. We had a lot of trial and error.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:35] Did you have your friends help? Did you all get together, and go, okay, do you like this? I don’t know, I like this one better.

Zoe Olie: [00:04:41] Well, it was mostly me and my mom. We had a lot of conversations of what we liked about the dolls, and we continued to have a lot of strategy.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:50] Yeah, your way or did she get her way?

Zoe Olie: [00:04:54] I think we both compromised, and we also—our customers send us a lot of feedback, so we use that as well to continue to grow our business.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:05] So, what’s your favorite part?

Zoe Olie: [00:05:07] My favorite part is probably the reviews that we get and the customers saying they love our products.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:12] Not the money?

Zoe Olie: [00:05:15] Well, most of the money we get goes back into the business, but I do enjoy seeing the fruits of my labor and all the revenue that we receive.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:24] You don’t have to be embarrassed about it. There’s nothing wrong with, when that money comes in, you’re like, oh, I can buy more dolls, I can help more people, right?

Zoe Olie: [00:05:33] Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:33] The more money that comes in, the more people you can help and get more dolls to more folks.

Zoe Olie: [00:05:37] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:38] So, what was it like when you gave that first doll to a child in need? How did you feel?

Zoe Olie: [00:05:45] I felt very empowered and I just like to see all that other little kids look up to me who want to start a business, and looking at this doll, really, a mark of confidence to them is just really empowering.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:03] So, has some kid come up to you, and saw you like a celebrity, asked for your autograph? Does that happen?

Zoe Olie: [00:06:09] Actually, no.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:10] Not yet?

Zoe Olie: [00:06:11] Not yet.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:12] So, I’ll be the first person to ask for your autograph?

Zoe Olie: [00:06:14] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:15] Okay. Good to know. So, now, what advice would you give other kids that are going to start a business? And they have dreams, a lot of kids have dreams, oh, I wish I had this, I wish this could happen, wishing and doing are different things.

Zoe Olie: [00:06:29] I would say, number 1, don’t be afraid to fail up. And again, there are always people that are there to help you along the way, your parents, teachers, counselors, and there are always people that are willing to help you and support you along your journey. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:48] So, with the right team, you could do anything, right?

Zoe Olie: [00:06:51] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:52] And you feel like you got a good team?

Zoe Olie: [00:06:54] Yes. And one more thing, always don’t be afraid to get started. I like to say don’t wait for the perfect wave, just swim. So, don’t be afraid, if you’re waiting for the perfect time, just get started.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:09] So, is that coming on a t-shirt soon?

Zoe Olie: [00:07:12] Maybe.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:12] Maybe.

Zoe Olie: [00:07:13] I’ll keep you posted.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:14] Keep me posted. And the website one more time?

Zoe Olie: [00:07:17] Beautifulcurlyme.com. And we also have Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Twitter @beautifulcurlyme.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:26] Alright. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today, Zoe.

Zoe Olie: [00:07:29] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:30] Alright. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Zoe Olie: [00:07:33] Yes. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:34] Alright. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you in a few at the WBENC National Conference 2022 inside the boot of GWBC.

 

About WBENC

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) is a leading non-profit organization dedicated to helping women-owned businesses thrive.WBENC-Logo

We believe diversity promotes innovation, opens doors, and creates partnerships that fuel the economy. That’s why we not only provide the most relied upon certification standard for women-owned businesses, but we also offer the tools to help them succeed.

About GWBC

The Greater Women’s Business Council (GWBC®) is at the forefront of redefining women business enterprises (WBEs). An increasing focus on supplier diversity means major corporations are viewing our WBEs as innovative, flexible and competitive solutions. The number of women-owned businesses is rising to reflect an increasingly diverse consumer base of women making a majority of buying decision for herself, her family and her business. GWBC-Logo

GWBC® has partnered with dozens of major companies who are committed to providing a sustainable foundation through our guiding principles to bring education, training and the standardization of national certification to women businesses in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

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